


Being Queen

by hereswith



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-18
Updated: 2011-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-15 18:22:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereswith/pseuds/hereswith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Persephone learns how to rule.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Queen

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt at the LJ challenge Half a Moon.

She did not dream of halls such as these, or the cries of the dead, when she was Kore, the maiden, and in her mother’s care ( _under her mother’s watchful eye_ ). When she walked in the high, bright sun, the meadow spilling over with colour, flower heads nodding, and she reached down ( _the ground cracked like a bird’s egg_ ).

But she learns how to rule. She dons the responsibility like she dons her chiton, her himation, until it becomes as familiar, and her hands as sure at the task ( _she holds them steady_ ). There is a growing sense of accomplishment in the draping and the girding, and something, she thinks, of purpose. Between the throne and the palace and the underworld lands, she finds her own power ( _her voice is heard_ ), the grace of it and the hardship, the _gravity_ , here, where the shades wander and the asphodels bloom so pale.

She has faced the unknown dark, and the strength she feels, that carries her, it is a kind she had not looked for, laughing with her friends beneath the blue-polished sky ( _how she has changed_ ). This is she, Persephone, among the black poplars and the willows, and Cerberus quiets at her touch, Hades bends his neck ( _did she guess at the fruit, did she know_ ).

“My poor, sweet girl. How can you bear it?” Demeter says, meaning the gloom and the depths and the reign, the marriage, and she answers her mother that she can, that she does ( _she has no regret, now_ ). As the seasons turn, she lives, herself divided and made whole ( _she is queen_ ).


End file.
